[New-imc] Pittsburgh IMC - internal DEADLINE NOVEMER 27, 2002

[Sheri Herndon]

hi andy,

thanks for the application.  it seems that this is more than just 
your introduction letter.  you have also included your local 
collective's responses to the principles of unity and membership 
criteria as well as your mission statement.  awesome.  we have a week 
to discuss this on our list.

you also raise a really good clarifying question about liaison.  i'll 
share some thoughts on that in a separate email to keep things 
clearer.

also, your comments about the principles of unity, i forwarded to the 
imc-unity list which has been in existence since the principles were 
drafted and consensed to by the 80 people in san francisco 18 months 
ago.  i imagine some good responses will come from both your comments 
about rewording #3 (which has come up before) and the suggestion of a 
new principle concerning advertising.  the unity list will forward 
their thoughts to this list once they've been summarized and a bit of 
a discussion has taken place.  feel free to post additional comments 
to that list if you have them.

you mention that you have consensed to all the membership criteria 
with the exception of wanting more clarification about 
responsibilities of liaisons on global lists.  i'm wondering also 
whether you have an editorial policy?

thanks again and look forward to the process of pittsburgh becoming a 
member of the indymedia network.

sheri
seattle imc





At 7:14 PM -0500 11/21/02, Andy Mulkerin wrote:
>The following is the Pittsburgh IMC's introductory letter. We're all ready
>to go through the approval process, as you will read. Note that our
>concerns with the principles of unity and membership criteria are only
>suggestions, to be aired out, and we don't plan on holding out until
>they're adopted or anything. Just things we've discussed that we'd like to
>make a note of.
>
>Thanks
>
>Andy
>
>
>Pittsburgh is a two-newspaper town. But that doesn't make it any easier to
>make your dissenting voice heard. It just makes it twice as hard.
>
>In a town with a history that's kneedeep in robber barons and machine
>politics it's not hard to see that the press is less than free. In recent
>years the more "liberal" of the two daily newspapers, the Post-Gazette,
>has endorsed drastic downtown redevelopment, taxpayer-funded stadiums and
>huge hospital mergers*, all at the expense of everyday citizens. There is
>an evident need for more community-based coverage, both with regard to
>radical politics and with regard to the issues that affect everyday life
>here.
>
>In addition to attempting to close this gap in independent and critical
>media outlets, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center is dedicated to
>empowering each and every citizen of the city and its metropolitan area to
>take the task of making media into their own hands. The job of reporting
>is too important to be left to professional reporters with corporate
>bosses and vested interests.
>
>The Pittsburgh IMC collective has agreed to the IMC principles of unity in
>their current form, with these exceptions/suggestions:
>
>#3: We advocate a change in the wording of this, to something like: All
>IMC's recognize the importance of respect for privacy and make an effort,
>within reason, to avoid filming or photographing activists who ask that we
>do so.
>
>We would also favor seeing the addition of:
>All IMC's will avoid using advertising as a source of revenue.
>
>We also have concensed to the IMC Membership Criteria. We noted that in
>criterion (j) it's mentioned that each IMC should have a liason to the
>global network, but it doesn't enumerate precisely what that liason's
>duties are. We'd like to know more precisely what that means.
>
>- Pittsburgh Indymedia Collective
>   http://www.indypgh.org
>
>Mission Statement:
>
>The Pittsburgh Independent Media Center is a voluntary collective
>dedicated to serving the local community with a system for disseminating
>print and online news. Our coverage will be the issues and events ignored
>by mainstream media, and also those issues that mainstream media covers
>with the inherent bias of a news organization run as a business. We
>believe that the job of disseminating information does not belong to a
>privileged class of reporters and editors, but to everyone. It is our duty
>as citizens to act as journalists so that the public knows the truth in
>every instance, not just when the truth is to our political and economic
>rulers' advantage. We seek to be an inclusive organization which will grow
>as a community, and not as a hierarchy.
>
>
>*See editorials, 02/07/00, 07/0998, 05/13/02 and 06/30/02.
>
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